Conceptual Framework for Measuring Quality of Employment

1
Conceptual Framework forMeasuring Quality of
Employment
Geoff Bowlby Director, Labour Statistics Statistic
s Canada October 14, 2009
2
Objectives and Outputs of Task Force

• Key objectives
• To refine and create indicators of quality of
  employment
• Test those indicators against a set of criteria
  developed by the Task Force
• Process for achieving objectives
• Steering Committees Canada, Eurostat, UNECE,
  ILO, WEIGO
• Framework document drafted winter 2008
• Meetings of the Task Force
• June 2008 members reviewed proposed dimensions
  and suggested indicators
• May 2009 start of user acceptance process
• Commissioning of reports
• Validation study (Italy)
• Country reports (Germany, Israel, Italy, Mexico,
  Moldova, Ukraine, Canada, Finland, France)

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Objectives and Outputs of Task Force

• Key outputs
• Reports to Conference of European Statisticians
  (2008, 2009)
• www.unece.org/stats/documents/2008.02.bureau.htm
• www.unece.org/stats/documents/2009.02.bureau.htm
• Papers commissioned for two Task Force meetings
• www.unece.org/stats/documents/2008.06.labour.htm
• www.unece.org/stats/documents/2009.05.labour.htm
• ISTAT Validation report
• Country reports
• Final report to Conference of European
  Statisticians (Feb. 2010)

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What is Quality of Employment?

• Three perspectives
• Societal
• Corporate
• Individual
• The Framework takes mostly perspective 3
  (individual), but also has elements of
  perspective 1 (societal).

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Main principles used in developing the Framework

1. The measurement of quality of employment should
   be comprehensive.
2. Not all aspects of quality need to be relevant
   for measurement in all countries.
3. The framework should have a transparent, logical
   structure.
4. The framework should be practical.
5. Wherever possible, use existing international
   definitions.

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What does the Framework look like?

• Seven dimensions
• Safety and ethics of employment
• Income and benefits from employment
• Working hours and balancing work and non-working
  life
• Security of employment and social protection
• Social dialogue
• Skills development and life-long learning
• Workplace relationships and intrinsic nature of
  work

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Safety and Ethics

• Indicators which show
• Workplace safety
• Worst forms of employment
• Fair treatment in employment
• Special focus for fair treatment sub-dimension
• Produce as many indicators as possible in other
  dimensions and compare population group to
  general population

8
Income and Benefits

• Obvious component of employment quality
• Canadian survey showed that this is where the
  largest job quality deficits were
• Important to show both income compensation and
  non-wage benefits

9
Working hours and balancing work and family life

• Three groups of indicators
• Working hours
• Working time arrangements
• Balancing work and non-working life

10
Security of employment and social protection

• Ranked with good pay as an important element of
  quality of employment
• Dimensions designed to show
• Degree of performance
• Tenure of work
• Status in employment
• Informalization of work
• Flexicurity concept

11
Social dialogue

• An aspect of employment quality is the degree to
  which workers have the right to organize and
  collectively bargain
• Skills development and life-long learning
• Training
• Under/over qualification

12
Workplace relationships and intrinsic nature of
work

• To some, how well we get along (workplace
  relations) is as important as pay or benefits
• Intrinsic nature of work provides information on
  characteristics of employment which are
  inherently satisfying, e.g.
• Teaching
• Military service (for some)
• Religion
• Intrinsic nature of work is least developed
  aspect of framework, but important

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The Indicators

• In Annex I of the paper
• Work in progress, hope to finalize this week
• Input from seminar
• Country reports
• Validation study